Develop patience in the waiting room of life

Q: I’m working from home, actually overworking, from home. I read the news but cannot tell what is going to happen next. I’m pacing around my house like a tiger and really over this whole shelter-in-place thing. Are there any tools to not go completely nuts with no idea how long I have to deal with my current situation?

A: Yes, realize waiting is the hardest part of this COVID-19 journey. We have cabin fever, and no guarantees are coming from experts. Scared and waiting is a bad combo!

Psychological research indicates that we cope better with bad news than no news and what we’ve got right now is no news. Dr. Anthony Fauci, our fearless health leader, believes we have hit the peak and are coming down the other side. We may be poking our heads out like a groundhogs in May carefully evaluating what and who we want contact with.

On top of all this stress, if you have a job, you are probably overemployed right now. Who knew that working from home during a pandemic means that if your job is important normally, it is really, really important right now!

Coping means remembering your current situation is a short phase. There is an end in sight. Make plans for what you want to do as you emerge into the sunlight cautiously in May.

Consider that nobody loves waiting; we love arriving. Yet most of life exists in a waiting room. We wait to grow up, graduate, fall in love, get a job, get a better job, have a baby, and wait for baby to grow up. Because we spend so much time waiting, our crisis gives us the chance to develop acceptance of the anxiety that waiting creates.

We won’t immediately go back to who we were in February. We won’t have the security to confidently return to our lives until we have a vaccine, effective combo of meds that prevent lethality, or complete remission of new cases. We can, however, live enjoyable lives while still being cautious.

Be OK about feeling upset and still practice making good choices. Most of how life turns out isn’t avoiding feeling bad but whether we act badly. We will feel crappy at times right now, but we can make choices that will benefit us in the long run.

In the meantime, with your nose pressed against the glass wondering, ‘Are we there yet?’ you can count on your situation changing. We changed into the pandemic and we will change out of it. In the future you will still be waiting, for a vacation, for a date or for a promotion. What you have the chance to develop is patience in the perpetual waiting room of life.

The last word(s)

Q: I am making mistakes I never make, having trouble focusing, and finding even simple problems like rocket science. Did I suddenly become stupid?

A: No, you became scared, which makes all of us act little Winnie the Pooh, a bear with very little brain. Grant yourself grace and be reassured your brain will come back as your anxiety dies down.

———

(Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.)

(c) 2020 INTERPERSONAL EDGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.